


The Path Home

by Spideyfan62



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Depression, F/M, Gen, Grieving Peter Parker, I apologize in advance, More tags to be added, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Precious Peter Parker, This Is Going To Be Rough
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-19 12:22:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29874618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spideyfan62/pseuds/Spideyfan62
Summary: However, before anyone could speak, a loud crack of what sounded like thunder rang across the sky, and it sent shockwaves through Peter’s entire being. He looked up and around them, but there didn’t appear to be anything that could have caused it: no ship forthcoming, nothing that exploded or anything like that. Still, Peter felt a strong sense of dread overwhelm him from the inside out. It was a feeling unlike anything he’d ever felt before, greater than any time he’d been in an immediate life-threatening situation even. Something was coming, or about to happen, he just didn’t know what.It didn’t take him long to find out.
Relationships: Happy Hogan & Peter Parker, Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Guardians of the Galaxy Team, Peter Parker & Stephen Strange, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 8
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chrissie_01](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chrissie_01/gifts).



> To Chrissie_01, thank you very much for being willing to share and offer up your ideas! I hope that I am able to do your idea justice! To everyone else: there's still some ideas that haven't been taken, so go to the profile this was gifted towards and check them out!

Peter was in way over his head. 

Okay, he had felt that way ever since that spider bit him over two years ago, but this was something else. Stopping buses with your bare hands, that was one thing,  but swinging around in a meteor shower on an  _ alien planet  _ while  fighting an intergalactic nutcase who used some magic stones to  bring down a  _ whole moon  _ t hat cause d said meteor shower  was  more than he’d dreamt in his wildest of dreams. 

“Focus,” he said quietly to himself as he swung through the mix of rubble and meteors . Mr. Stark was  likely fighting Thanos as they spoke, and maybe the sorcerer as well, but the others they had run into were all  somewhere in all this debris, and it was up to Peter to catch them all. His head was practically on a swivel, but it was difficult to concentrate while also trying to avoid colliding with anything. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Peter spotted one of them, shooting a web almost instantly. 

“I got you!” 

Another one of them. He landed on the underside of some debris, the mechanical legs of his new suit doing the hanging on for him.

“I got you!” 

Then the third one. 

“I’m sorry I can’t remember anybody’s names!” Peter called out, feeling a bit rude. He was the best student in his class at school and could remember the most complex of equations or the most random scientific fact s , but he was  _ the worst  _ when it came to remembering names. He put aside his embarrassment as he attached the webs  holding those he’d rescued  together to make it easier to grip. 

For a few minutes, Peter just held onto  the torn remains of...whatever it was that he was holding onto. He was trusting that if a meteor was coming straight towards them, that strange feeling that he got whenever something dangerous was coming would indeed come again.  Taking the moon out of the atmosphere and bringing it to them must’ve done something weird to the gravity where they were, because Peter and those he was clinging to were just kind of riding this floating piece of a lien technology. 

“Man,” Peter said, looking around at the bizarre sight, “I’m definitely looking into this once I get out of here.”  He already couldn’t wait to discuss theories with Ned on why gravity was behaving this way, or how...

No, he couldn’t think about that right now. Peter wouldn’t allow himself to get so far ahead, lest he lose focus and mess things up any more than he already had. He had already messed up once by not  getting the gauntlet off when they had Thanos at their collective mercy; he wouldn’t fail again. 

Peter suddenly felt the webs shifting around in his grip just little, and he looked down to see the ones he had rescued were beginning to stir awake.  The one that was human, or at least looked the part (he had said he was from Missouri  earlier ) seemed to be the first to fully come to , his head suddenly shooting in every direction as if he were looking for something.

“It’s okay; I’ve got you!” Peter called out. 

“Where is he!?” the man yelled, and before Peter knew it, he had cut himself free, falling only briefly before flying off. At least he didn’t have to worry about one of them anymore, but then the others started  getting fussy. 

“Let us down, small man!” called out the big one. 

“Excuse me!” Peter shouted back, taking more offense to this statement than he would’ve anticipated, “I’m still growing .... probably !”  He wasn’t exactly the tallest in his class, but he wasn’t exactly the shortest either.

“Please,” the female one with the antennae who looked like something out of a sci-fi alien movie spoke up, “we have to help him! He’s no match for Thanos ; he’ll get himself killed!” 

Peter looked around to assess their situation. The meteor shower seemed to have died down, and his special sixth sense (he really needed  to come up with a proper name for it) wasn’t going off, so he figured it was worth taking the chance to finally venture back out into the fight.  While the man who flew off had held him at gunpoint earlier, it had all been a big misunderstanding , and while thinking Footloose was the greatest movie in history was normally unforgiveable, Peter would have to force himself to look past that at this time. 

Retracting the mechanical arms back into his suit, Peter fired a web at the nearest chunk of debris, pulling the web tight and arcing them in the direction in which  their friend flew off. It didn’t take long before they were coming out of where the mess, so Peter gradually swung lower until they eventually made it safely to the ground. The big guy tore the web off himself, letting out a growl of pain as he did. 

“Sorry,” Peter said, cringing as  the memory of his early days experimenting with the webbing. He knew very well it was  like ripping off a bandage from skin. “Its kind supposed to be really sticky. ” 

“It’s fine,” the man said gruffly, as if trying to save his manhood. They freed the  other two before continuing back towards the battle on foot. With any luck, maybe they would catch up before Thanos has had any real chance to do some major damage to his new ally, the doctor  or even Mr. Stark...

Peter suddenly found himself running well ahead of the others, occasionally using a web to yank himself along as the thought of his mentor stuck in his mind. Mr. Stark was  constantly innovating his suits to prepare for any kind of crisis imaginable, but he was pretty sure that none of them had imagined anything, or anyone, like Thanos. He had to get there, fast. 

__________________________

It didn’t take long before Peter finally reached the others. Unfo rtunately, judging by the looks of things, Thanos had likely gotten away and had been gone for a little while now.  Doctor Strange was sitting against some of the planets remains, while the friend of his new allies was standing there, eyes wide and face contorted in a mix of shock and anger. 

What really caught Peter’s attention though was Mr. Stark, who was lying on the ground, helmet  removed, and  his  suit torn in some areas.  Moving quickly once more, he made his way over to the man. 

“Mr. Stark!” Peter said once he got close, and as he bent down next to the man, he could see the true extend of the damage : a stab wound that went clean through his midsection. 

“Oh man,” Peter said, and his mind began racing a million miles an hour as he began trying to think of a solution while also conjuring up words to assure Mr. Stark that he’d be fine. 

A hand against his shoulder put all those thoughts on hold. 

“Kid,” Mr. Stark said, his eyes holding an intensity and a focus that gripped Peter’s attenti on, “I need you to do exactly as I say, you understand?” 

Peter nodded  enthusiastically in response. 

“I need you to pull this thing out of me,” he said. 

“Okay,” Peter said, more nervousness coming out in his voice than he wanted. “Okay.” He grabbed hold of the blade with his hand , forcing himself to remain steady .  Removing blades from himself was one thing, but doing so from somebody else...

“You ready?”  he asked.

“Yep, go for it,” Mr. Stark replied in one breath. 

Peter slowly began pulling at the blade, glancing at Mr. Stark to see that the man ’s eyes were closed tightly , so he dared to pull just a little bit faster. The back half of the blade basically slid out on its own, causing Mr. Stark to let out a  yell and Peter to let out a breath he didn’t even realize he’d been holding. 

“Alright, step one down,” Mr. Stark said before trying to sit himself up more properly, grimacing as he did so. Peter moved to his side , clutching the top of his arm and his opposite side to help steady him. 

“Thanks kid,” he said. 

“Now what?” Peter asked, wondering what he had in mind for the actual treatment of the wound. His mentor said nothing in response,  instead raising up his right arm and bringing it over so that his fingers were pointing at the wound. Peter watched as a  spray began emitting from a couple of  the fingers of the suit, and the wound began to slowly come up. He thought about making some comment about how it was like some kind of  bacta spray in Star Wars before thinking better of it.  After all, Mr. Stark had specifically asked for no more pop culture references for the remainder of their little trip, and he intended to do his best to honor that request. 

Peter stayed next to Mr. Stark for the next several minutes as nobody dared to say anything. There was a mood going around, and Peter could feel it too. It was one of failure, of a realizati on that they had been so close to stopping perhaps the worst the galaxy had to offer, only to let it slip through their fingers.  His own failure came to mind as well, but Peter forced those thoughts back as best he could. 

The reality was that they were all still here; by some miracle, Thanos hadn’t killed any of them. That means that they had a chance. If th at big purple intergalactic despot had what he wanted, he would’ve done exactly what he’d talked about right then and there: he would’ve snapped his fingers and effectively wiped-out half of all life in the universe.  Peter had to keep his focus on that, on the hope that they would get another crack at Thanos before this was all over. 

Peter finally dared to ask a question that had been on his mind for a while now. 

“So, what now?” 

Mr. Stark’s eyes  closed and his head turned to the side. Peter wondered if he’d aggravated him and had asked the question too soon, but then the man responded. 

“We need to get back to earth.” 

“Are there any of those stones there?” Peter asked. 

“Yes, and one of them is in Vision’s head.” 

_ Woah!  _ That yellow thing in that  vibranium synthezoid’s head was an infinity stone?  That was new... and potentially deadly for said  synthezoid . 

Mr. Stark was right, they needed to get back to earth. 

“Help me up kid,” Mr. Stark  said . Peter grabbed the man’s upper arm with one hand and his back lower with the other, standing the  both of them up.  Mr. Stark stumbled at first before steadying himself enough where he didn’t require Peter’s support anymore. The others started coming around them, and  it felt like a plan of action was about to be formed. 

However, before anyone could speak, a loud crack of what sounded like thunder rang across the sky, and it  sent shockwaves through Peter’s entire being. He looke d up and around them, but there didn’t appear to be anything that could have caused it: no ship forthcoming, nothing that exploded or anything like that. Still, Peter felt a strong sense of dread overwhelm him from the inside out.  It was a feeling unlike anything he’d ever felt before, greater than any time he’d been in an immediate  life-threatening situation even. Something was coming, or about to happen, he just didn’t know what. 

It didn’t take him long to find out. 

It happened to the big green guy first. His hands started to dissolve, almost as if turning to dust. 

“Quill?” the man said, looking at his human companion before the rest of his body dissipated into dust, floating away. 

Peter’s eyes went wide, looking on in shock as the same thing happened to the others he and Tony had encountered, one by one dissipating into  nothingness. Finally, it was just the human left from that group. 

“Steady Quill,” Mr. Stark said, but it was already too late.

“Oh, man,” Quill replied as his body dissolved just as his cohorts did, his dusty remains blowing away. 

Peter and Tony both turned to face Dr. Strange. 

“You knew this would happen?” Tony asked. Peter’s eyes widened, looking intently at the doctor. What did Mr. Stark mean by that? The man stared at them with a quiet, steady conviction even as he clearly anticipated something  bad.

“It was the only way,” the man said quietly but firmly before himself disintegrating. 

Now it was just the two of them. 

Peter turned to face Mr. Stark, holding his breath as he was waiting to see which one of them would be next. The answer came quickly, as soon Mr. Stark’s legs began to  disintegrate into dust, the process overtaking his body, causing him to collapse. 

“Mr. Stark?” Peter said, his voice shaky as he caught the man’s upper half. 

“Make it home, kid,” the man said, barely managing to get out the words before the process was complete and what little remained of him floated away and out of Peter ’s grasp as the boy reached out for it unsuccessfully. 

As Peter’s hands slowly came back down, he just stared at them, bracing himself to watch them disintegrate . Everyone else with him had disappeared: Mr. Stark, Dr. Strange, the Guardians...all of them. Maybe this was Thanos’s punishment for trying to stop him. He sat there,  anticipating  his time. 

That time never came. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The realization slowly started to sink into Peter’s being that he wasn’t going to turn to ash like the others. He had survived, being among the half that Thanos had said would be spared. The others though, Dr. Strange, the Guardians, Mr. Stark...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter: Peter struggles with his failure and his mentor's last wish.

The realization slowly started to sink into Peter’s being that he wasn’t going to turn to ash like the others. He had survived, being among the half that Thanos had said would be spared. The others though, Dr. Strange, the Guardians, Mr. Stark... 

Peter slumped back into a sitting position against the hard rock like surface of the planet, his thoughts swirling as tears began to swell within his eyes. They had had a chance...he had had the chance to stop this. The gauntlet had been so close; Peter could remember seeing Thanos’s fingers start to show. One more good yank might’ve been all it took. If he had started pulling even a couple seconds sooner... 

The tears suddenly came crashing down, bursting from his eyes and streaking down his cheeks as Peter began weeping bitterly. They were all gone because he failed. 

“I....I’m so sorry Mr. Stark,” Peter mumbled through heavy sobs, “so sorry.” 

He had failed like this once before, and he’d sworn that it wouldn’t happen again. He’d been irresponsible then, focusing only on himself, and it too had caused him to lose someone he’d cared about. With great power comes great responsibility; that’s what he’d learned that day. Yet today he’d been responsible to the best he felt he could be. As he had told Mr. Stark when he stowed away on the ship: 

“There can’t be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man if there’s no neighborhood.” 

Whatever was going on, it had seemed like an all-hands-on deck situation, so Peter had hopped on board to do his part. Sure, he wasn’t as strong as the Hulk or as powerful as Thor, but he felt he still had to do something. He had tried to do the right thing...but the situation turned out even worse than that day over two years prior that started him on this path in the first place. 

Now half of the universe was gone. 

That realization only made his tears come even faster, the weight of his failure making his heart feel as though it had stopped. By now, Peter’s emotions were all over the place; his sobs were getting so hard due to his anguish that he had a hard time catching his breath. When he did, his anger lead him to cry out, venting to the air and the desolate planet around him. He kept this up until he had no air left in his lungs and no more tears to cry. By that time, he didn’t have a clue how long he’d been like that; it could’ve been a few minutes or several hours. However long it was, it had done nothing to remove the thoughts that plagued his mind. 

Half of all life in the universe was gone. 

Wives lost husbands, and vice versa. 

Children lost their moms or dads. Maybe both. 

Peter collapsed on his side, the weight of these things bearing down on his soul. It felt like a weight was chained to his heart, dragging him down altogether. He had no energy and no words to speak; even if he did, no one was there to listen. He laid there for a while, lacking any motivation to get up. What was the point of it anyway? When the time had come for his number to be called, he couldn’t deliver. Mr. Stark should’ve never... 

“Make it home, kid.” 

The man’s last words came ringing afresh in Peter’s mind. If there was one thing that he had been able to see was important to his mentor, it was home. Not his house, or even his workshop, but the woman he loved: Pepper Potts. Mr. Stark had never explicitly talked with Peter about what she meant to him, but he didn’t have to. The few times he had seen the two of them together, all he had to do was look at the man’s eyes when he looked at her. 

She was his whole world. 

Peter began to think about those in his world. He thought of May, the woman who had raised him most of his life, including the last two years by herself. When she found out he was dressing up in red and blue spandex and fighting crime in his spare time (or regular time), she was far from happy at first, but eventually, she had come to understand why he felt he had to do this, even saying she was proud of the man he was growing into. Granted, she probably would never let him out of her sight after this, but right now, that didn’t sound too bad. 

He also thought of Ned, his best friend since elementary school. They started off as two kids just trying to survive their school years, but they eventually came to be the brothers neither of them had. Ned was the first non-Avenger to find out about Peter’s identity as Spider-Man and he had embraced it from that time on, all be it with a never-ending list of questions. To be fair, Ned had also come to figure out when to give Peter his space after a rougher ordeal, and he knew his friend would do so here. 

Those two could both still be waiting for him, unless....no, he couldn’t let himself think of the possibility. The thought of seeing them again was the only thing that was finally allowing even the smallest bit of motivation to return to his body. Slowly, Peter began to force himself up, keeping the images of his loved ones in the front of his mind. He sat up, immediately putting a hand against his knee while placing his other hand against the ground, slowly pushing himself up to a standing position. Finally, he made it to where he was on his own two feet. 

But now what? 

Peter decided to head to the ship he had arrived in with Mr. Stark and Dr. Strange first. He didn’t exactly have much reason for confidence in driving the massive donut shaped vehicle given how the last time went, but he had to start somewhere. He trudged on, fighting the still fresh thoughts that waged war on his mind and soul, trying to keep the images of May and Ned in the forefront. He tried to imagine the relief that would be on their faces when they saw he was okay, the hugs they would surely embrace him in....maybe a scolding or two from May about going to space without telling her too. Oh well, he would deal with that when the time came. 

After a while, Peter finally made it to the top of a hill where the ship should’ve been resting just below, only for his heart to sink at the sight before him: the once tall, round ship was destroyed, its parts scattered to the four winds, some borderline unrecognizable. 

Duh! Peter thought, chastising himself internally for the getting his hopes up on this idea. This was well within the vicinity of the meteor shower, when Thanos brought the moon down on them all. Nothing could’ve made it out intact from that! Peter kicked a nearby rock in frustration; he wasn’t about to give up, but what other possibilities were there? He could look and see if he could get some old ship just lying around somewhere to start, but from how Thanos talked earlier, it sounded as if this planet had been abandoned for a long time now. That wasn’t likely to yield any kind of results, and the Guardians came on.... 

Wait, how did the Guardians arrive there? 

Peter stopped to think; it wasn’t long after they landed (okay, crash landed) that the Guardians came on board and attacked them, so they had to have arrived before they did. Obviously, they had to have come on their own ship, right? 

Or maybe they used some kind of portal fast travel device that vanished like everything else on their persons... 

Peter shook the thought out of his head. The last thing he needed was another thought to get him even more down than he already felt. The Guardians (he still didn’t know why they called themselves that) came on a ship of their own and it was clear of the raining destruction that was an alien using magic stones to pull a moon out of the atmosphere and rain it down on them... 

Okay, remembering that didn’t help much either. 

Peter scanned the area from his high viewpoint but saw nothing that looked intact in any way whatsoever. Trying to keep what little hope he had alive despite the discouraging sight, he began his descent down the hill, his nimble nature helping him navigate the ledges well. Once he made it down to the base, he realized he had no idea which direction to go, so he kept going in the direction he already was. The way he figured, the ship likely wasn’t too far away, he just needed to pick the right direction. 

He continued for a while, glancing at his surroundings only to find nothing but scraps and heaps of destroyed materials everywhere he looked. Eventually, he gave up on that direction, shifted at about a ninety-degree angle and began moving another direction, hoping for more luck. 

_________________ 

It took about a while of searching, but eventually, Peter did find what could be a functioning ship, or at least one that wasn’t torn to shreds, sitting in a more abandoned area. It was just outside the zone where the meteor shower had hit. He only hoped that his luck would hold up and that it he would find it still functioning. 

He raced towards it, fighting his tiredness from the battle as well as the fact that he had missed at least one meal, possibly two that day, until he arrived. Thankfully the entry ramp was still down, so Peter made his way on board. He got in to find that it was more spacious on the inside than he would’ve guessed from looking at it on the outside. Still, Peter didn’t linger much on his path to the cockpit. Within seconds he was there and realized something important. 

He had no idea how to fly this thing. 

“Okay, okay,” he said, trying to keep his spirits up, “you can figure this out.” He decided to call upon some things his Uncle Ben had shown him from his time as a plane mechanic in the Air Force. Granted, Peter had never gotten to see the ins and outs of it all in person, but Ben had looked up and shown him specs and described in detail how different things worked to make planes operational. Though the ship he was on now was likely very different in at least a few ways, it had to be at least similar enough on some fundamental levels. 

Peter moved to perform a more in-depth survey of the craft that was likely his only hope of getting off this desolate world and back home. He saw a couple of handles on the right side in the front that likely controlled thrust as well as direction. That was the easy part; the hard part was deducing what all the buttons were for. He poured over them carefully, only to find there was no writing or indicators of any kind that could tell him what purpose each served. Still, he could make educated guesses on a couple of them with the knowledge Ben had given him. 

He took a seat and decided to try his luck a little. Strapping himself in just in case, Peter pressed a green button in position that looked like it could be the ignition. However, nothing happened. 

“Hmm,” he mumbled, looking inquisitively at some of the other buttons. He found a blue one that could be it, so he decided to try it. There was no ignition in response, but he did hear the ramp closing behind him, so there was at least something that was done right. He looked again, figuring he had to be on the right path and the ignition should be close to the button he pressed for the ramp. 

Peter opted to try a red one a couple of spaces up, almost holding his breath in the hopeful anticipation that he might finally have guessed right this time. Sure enough, the engine began to roar. 

“YES!” Peter shouted, but just as he did, the engine fizzled out. 

“Oh c’mon!” he yelled, pressing the button again, but to no avail; he couldn’t get more than a faint attempt at starting up again. Unbuckling himself, Peter decided to try and see if he could figure out what was wrong with the engine. He went to another room and found what looked like a giant touch screen. It was currently set as if it had been charting a course somewhere, likely to the planet he was on now. Perhaps he could use it to run a diagnostic or something. 

Reaching out his finger slowly, Peter touched the screen, causing the image to pop up in front of him instead. He reached for it again, swiping to the right with his pointer finger. This time he saw something that read “POTENTIAL CLIENTS” and below it a list of names of groups or individuals, though he couldn’t be sure, since he didn’t recognize anything he saw. 

Man, who are these guys? Peter thought. 

He swiped again, finally coming to something that, while useful, was also rather discouraging. 

REPAIRS NEEDED. 

The list wasn’t extensive per se, but it was still enough that it would probably take some time, especially given that one thing on the list was to check on some concerns related to the engine. 

Bottom line, if Peter was going to get home, he had some work to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all enjoyed it! Thanks so much to those who left feedback on the first chapter. I greatly appreciate your support and feedback :)
> 
> It was pointed out that I have a bit of a formatting issue on the first chapter. I apologize; I'm trying to type it up in a word document first and get it on from there instead of just typing it on here then saving it elsewhere later. I'm still figuring out the HTML and Rich Text stuff, so know I'm doing my best.
> 
> My prayers continue to be with each and every one of you. Stay safe and healthy out there! 
> 
> "Elijah was afraid and ran for his life..." 1 Kings 19:3-9

**Author's Note:**

> Alright! Can't believe I FINALLY got this first chapter up! 
> 
> Some pointers going forward in terms of what to expect in this story: 
> 
> First off, this is NOT AN ENDGAME STORY. In other words, don't get your hopes up for any of The Vanished to return by the end. This is a story of Peter dealing with loss and failure. 
> 
> Second, this is going to be my most brutal story yet. Peter is going to go through the ringer, especially emotionally. Make no mistake, there will be some moments of levity here and there, but at its core, this isn't going to be a pleasant read. 
> 
> Third, in Infinity War, they say two years have passed since Civil War, so basically acting as if Peter is 17 and in senior year unlike what we know from Far From Home, where he's 16. All that to say, he's just a tad aged up, but not much. 
> 
> Fourth, don't worry, there will be Spideychelle, but it will take some time to get to. Hang in there. 
> 
> Fifth, I don't have a real idea on a chapter count right now. If I had to guess a number, I would say at least 13, but who knows. I've got an outline, so we'll see how it all pans out as the story progresses. 
> 
> Sixth, my goal is to update once a week. I'm headed for a week long vacation starting tomorrow, so I don't know for sure what that will look like for sure, but otherwise that is the schedule I hope to stick to. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you all enjoy! Know that I am praying for you all. 
> 
> Stay safe and healthy out there! 
> 
> "Save us and help us with your right hand, that those you love may be delivered." Psalm 60:5


End file.
